The present invention relates to a cable end connector, and particularly to a cable end connector having a shield mechanism for use with a flat cable.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,854,787, 3,861,775, 4,767,345 and Taiwan Patent Application No. 78106838 each disclose a conventional cable end connector for connecting with a flat cable. However, none of these conventional cable end connectors provides a shield mechanism for shielding the connecting portion of the cable end connector and the flat cable. This means that the plurality of wires of the flat cable is exposed to EMI at the connecting portion, and thus signal transmission may be interfered with.
Another cable end connector is disclosed in Taiwan Patent Application No. 81201975. Although a shield member is disclosed in this invention for EMI, this shield member is just designed for round cable. A conductive material is commonly provided in a shroud at the end of a flat cable to shield against EMI when the width of the cable end connector is equal to the width of the flat cable. However, when the width of the cable end connector is wider than the width of the flat cable, the conventional invention can not provide reliable EMI protection.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional cable end connector 7 has an insulative housing 70 defining a plurality of passageways 71 for electrically connecting to corresponding wires 80 of a flat cable 8. A conductive material 9 surrounds the end of flat cable 8, thereby providing EMI protection. However, the width of the insulative housing 70 is wider than the width of the flat cable 8, and the conductive material 9 can not shroud the end of the wires 80. Therefore, signal transmission between the flat cable 8 and the cable end connector 7 may be interfered with.
Thus there is a need for an improved cable end connector to overcome the above mentioned problem.